Designing a Healthy Eating Plan

To have a healthy, balanced diet, you need to eat a wide variety of foods that are rich in nutrients.

Your best bet is to choose the most nutrient-dense foods you can from each food group each day — those packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other nutrients, and also low in refined carbohydrates such as sugar and white flour. Pick foods like vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and lean meat and fish. You may want to choose organic sources of foods. (Organic means that no man-made pesticides, hormones, or antibiotics were applied to the crop while it was being grown or to feed that was given to animals that provided the food, or were given to the animals.)

You’ll probably find that fresh foods offer more nutrients and less sugar than processed foods.

Do you need to count calories?

Many people believe that if you eat fewer calories than you burn each day, you’ll lose weight, and if you eat the same number of calories that you’ll burn, you’ll maintain a healthy weight. This plan works for many people, but not all.

If you’re counting calories, it’s important to think about what you’re eating. Say Jane eats 1,200 calories a day of cake, cookies and white bread. She’s probably not going to lose any weight. Betty eats 1,200 calories a day of fresh vegetables and fruit and lean protein. She’s probably going to lose some weight and get a lot more nutrients from her food. Counting calories is only part of the weight loss equation.

And counting calories is only one way to lose weight. Because the hormone insulin plays a major role in how your body uses and stores fat, some research suggests that eating foods that keep insulin levels steady throughout the day — lean meat and fish, poultry, vegetables, and fruit — rather than foods like sugar, candy, white bread and crackers — can help you maintain a healthy weight.

You may want to talk to a registered dietitian about how to create a healthy diet plan that is right for you. If you live in the United States, you can get a list of dietitians in your ZIP code at the American Dietetic Association website.

Analyze your diet

You may want to do more to design a diet that meets your individual goals. If you're unable to work directly with a registered dietitian, you have some other options. Computer programs and online tools can help you further analyze what you eat. They go beyond whether or not you're getting enough of a specific nutrient. Some of them might even make recommendations about how much of specific foods you should eat per day and track your eating and nutrient patterns over time.

One option is the ChooseMyPlate.gov website, created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The site has information on food groups, a food planner, a food tracker and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

You can use the information to make smart choices from every food group so you get the nutrition you need.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend:

filling half your plate with vegetables and fruits

filling one-quarter of your plate with grains, half of them whole grains

filling one-quarter of your plate with lean protein, making sure you vary your protein sources and include fish twice a week